


We Who Don't Care

by Anonymous



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-11 16:56:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/800982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kinkmeme prompt: something including Enjolras and "Anthem" from "Chess."</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Who Don't Care

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know, this sort of follows the themes of the song in my head.

"Come now," said Grantaire, "you have sat with me--how long? How many evenings have you spent, meeting with your friends in bars like this one, trying to make sense of me?"  
  
"I have more important things to do with my time," Enjolras said, "than to count days."  
  
"And in all that time, you are no closer to understanding me than the first day you tried to convince me to revolt. All the quotidian pleasures that I can string together to fill up a day, brim-full of delight, these have no meaning for you?"  
  
"I  _also_  have better things to do, these days, than incentivize you to rebellion."  
  
"Because you do not understand me," Grantaire threw up his hands, "no matter how long you will spend listening to me explain the joys of life you ignore."  
  
"Is it not true," Combeferre nodded, "that Paris taken in its entirety, or France beyond the city, is so much more full of people, with all their various joys and pains, than this simple bar can be?"  
  
"Indubitably," said Enjolras. What was there to fear?  _Combeferre_ , siding with Grantaire against him? That was not possible.  
  
"Then as hard as it is to know and understand a single person, with all their quirks and inconsistencies, it must be that much harder, thousands upon thousands of times, to know and love a nation."  
  
"You jest at my convictions?" Enjolras almost seemed to laugh. "When there is an arbitrary monarch seated on the throne? Mock, if you must, those who do see nations, and neglect them."  
  
"And what are you?" Grantaire challenged.  
  
"I? I am what I have always been--part of a  _we_." He turned to Combeferre. "But we must be more than conquerors. We will be liberators, and the people of France shall be free to be whoever they become."  
  
"Even when they are at odds? With nothing but the flag in common?" Combeferre asked.  
  
"Even then."  
  
"When they are petty and legalistic and greedy and shortsighted and brutal and drunk?"  
  
"Come along, who's stereotyping now? So too will there always be loving and faithful and wise and revolutionary citizens, too. Brothers in freedom."  
  
"There have, indeed, always been revolutionary sorts," Grantaire muttered, "whose interests in revolution are what turned them into part of the imperfect tense."  
  
"They are not so far gone as many still breathing, with no sense of the ideals worth living for."  
  
Grantaire sighed. "Is it too much to ask for that you might love France best by becoming a Parisian? Learning to appreciate our bars, our streets, and leave them intact?"  
  
"Too much?" said Combeferre. "Too little, rather, to be walled in by this sludge when all heaven might be open above us."  
  
Enjolras smiled. "Someday we all shall be buried in this ground, never to desert Paris again. But everything we sung will echo for those who outlive us, until we live in the hearts of those yet to come. Our survivors will be revolutionaries yet." He winked at Grantaire. "Whether they like it or not."


End file.
